Friday, 13 January 2012

MELBOURNE SUNSET

Air pollution is a problem that no major city in the world has avoided. Air pollution from industry, from the large numbers of homes clustered together in and around the cities and the widespread use of motor vehicles means that the quality of the air in cities suffers. Although the most obvious large emissions from factory chimneys have been eliminated – there are still lots of smaller amounts of polluting emissions from a broad range of large and small industries which contribute to Melbourne’s air pollution.

In Melbourne and other Victorian cities and towns, we are lucky. Air quality is good most of the time, thanks to low population density, favourable climate and tight regulations (see graphs below). The main air pollutants of concern for Victoria are ozone (in summer) and very small particles (mostly in winter) that we can breathe in. Unlike many of the developed countries in the world, acid rain is not a problem for us.

When the air quality is relatively bad with many fine particles suspended in the atmosphere, one thing that occurs is a range of colourful sunsets because of the light diffraction.

28 comments:

Breathtaking capture of your gorgeous, colorful skies, Nick! Superb! And you are fortunate to have less air pollution in Melbourne than so many other parts of the world! I hope it continues! Terrific and very interesting post for the day! Have a great weekend!

That is a lovely shot. When I start driving to work, the city is about 1,500 feet (550 meters) below me, and occasionally I can see the layer of smog. But most of the time the air is pretty clear here as the wind blows the clean mountain air over the city.

Now I wonder how much air pollution we have where I live. My family blame the air pollution for every little cough I have. They live out in the country side and I move to the city some 20 years ago. This post gave me something to think about. I like the photos too. =)

I hate when people disillusion me about my sunsets ;>)....(I do know about the smog -- when we lived in Oregon, they were always the most beautiful when the grass seed farmers were burning their fields...not nice...but the smog did create beautiful red sunsets.)